Pendulum
by sharingank
Summary: The pendulum swings, the pendulum cuts, the pendulum falls...Slight RaitoL implications, and major spoilers after chapter 58.


Ah, Death Note. How ye have consumed me...Uh. Yeah. This is...different from _anything_ I've ever written, so...hope y'all enjoy! (And..can follow my thought processes here XD).

_

* * *

_**Pendulum**_

* * *

__"You know me."_

_I do?_

_"Yes."_

_How?_

_"You saw me in a dream."_

_I did._

_"You remember?"_

_As much as one can recall a dream. _

_"And what are dreams?"_

_Memories. Feelings. Yesterday's fucked up washed out repressed distressed subconscious fodder. Indigestion. _

_"Freudian."_

_Freud was a has-been. Freud was a never been. Freud searched for the eye of a needle and found the head of a pin. I don't believe in dreams._

_"And that's why you killed me."_

_I killed you because you were in my way. _

_"You killed me because I am a dream."_

---

Raito opens his eyes. His ceiling is white. Or is it black?

It's night. The ceiling is black.

Heart. Beating. _Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum_. No, not beating. Pounding. Thrashing. Violent. Like a bird in a cage, like a corpse reanimated, scratching and clawing at the lid of the coffin. _Let me out! I'm not dead! Oh God, let me out!_

_I'M NOT DEAD. _

But he is dead. Raito knows he's dead, because he saw him die. They were in the same room, breathing the same air, and then he was gone. A flicker, a flash, a _moment_, and it's all over. You lose. I win, and you lose.

L used to crouch when he sat, knees level with his chest, bare toes dangling over the edge of the chair like little bi-polar nutcases contemplating suicide. He slouched when he walked, a lumbering gorilla. His eyes were on caffeine, always wide as if in a constant state of shock, always moving, always seeing, always _watching_.

That's why he had to go, really. He saw too much. He watched too often.

And, true to this persona he's affected, he slumps when he dies.

"I buried you, Ryuuzaki. You're not going anywhere."

Raito sneers, lips peeling away from teeth like a predator. "Rotted flesh and bones and worms, Ryuuzaki. You've made the worms happy. Your greatest accomplishment."

He looks at the clock.

3:30.

Yagami Raito closes his eyes.

---

"_I thought you didn't believe in dreams." _

_I don't. This is nothing. It's meaningless. I'll wake up, and I'll forget. _

"_Like you forgot about being Kira? Like you forgot about being human?"_

_Always one step behind me, it would seem. _

"_Why do you say so?"_

_Why do you ask so many questions?_

"_Because you don't ask the right ones."_

_Are _you_ trying to toy with _me?

"_That's a bit closer to the mark." _

_Get out. _

"_I know who you are, Kira. I know what you are."_

_Get out of my head. _

"_You're human." _

_GET OUT. _

---

The clock says 3:45 when he opens his eyes. Ceiling's still black.

_Black as a grave…_

No. He's lying on a mattress, head resting on his pillows, sheets tucked under his armpits. It's Ryuuzaki who's in the grave, not Raito. It's Ryuuzaki sealed off by the lid of a cedar box, Ryuuzaki compressed beneath the dirt, Ryuuzaki feeding the worms.

But the ceiling is black.

_A chasm, a pit, a void…_

What does Raito have to fear? He is in control; he wears the mask; he's sawed off Midas's hand and look at all the gold seeping—

_spilling, gushing_

—from the fingertips!

_Blood. Bile. Tears. _

The ceiling writhes like a torture victim strewn up by his balls. Like sperm swimming blindly in ink.

_Like skin bubbling and burning…_

Ridiculous. Ryuuzaki died of a heart attack. Clean. Simple. Quick. No suffering.

"I gave you that much, even if you didn't deserve it. Be grateful, Ryuuzaki. Had I touched that note…but Rem did it. Rem wrote your name. And Rem's a pile of ashes now. Should I sprinkle her on your grave, Ryuuzaki?"

He laughs, though it's mirthless laughter, and looks at the clock.

3:50.

Repeat cycle.

Yagami Raito closes his eyes.

---

_"What is a name?"_

_I told you to leave. _

"_Oh? My memory lapses from time to time. It exists only here, while you sleep."_

_The dream nonsense again. _

"_Nonsense? Perfect sense. But what is a name?"_

_Identification. Association. Stigma. _

"_Stigma?"_

_You can be judged by your name. _

"_Yes…that is true." _

_You can be shaped by your name, or the name you give yourself. Who are you? I'm so and so. Ah, so that's you. Yes, that's me. _

"_Of course." _

_You can become your name. _

"_Naturally."_

_I see. _

"_Mm?" _

_This is a test. You're testing me. _

"_Perhaps. Perhaps not." _

_Don't give me that elusive bullshit. Go back to wherever it is you came from. Nobody needs you anymore. _

"_I wonder…"_

_You doubt—_

_"I wonder, Kira. If you had known my name from the beginning, would you have been brave enough to kill me?"_

_---_

The clock has eyes. Bright, red, _flashing, pulsing _eyes. They glare at him, stare at him, _capture_ him. What if he looks at them for too long? Will they swallow him up? Will they _see_?

But there is nothing to see. Nothing. He's an average teenage boy, in an average teenage room, and it is 4:00 in the morning.

Someone's in the clock. Looking out. Looking in. Waiting. Waiting for what? Raito will not move. Raito will not condemn himself. He has a mission. He has a calling. He is a chosen one.

The world cried out for him, for a savior, for a new God, a God that purges the earth of filth, of refuse, of poison, so that the worthy and the pure may live in a glorious utopia.

The old God is as dead as Ryuuzaki.

The new God _breathes_.

And the clock has eyes.

_"Sleep."_

Voice. Slightly husky, yet childlike in its innocence.

_"Dream."_

No. This is wrong. Raito's eyes are open.

_"Who fears a shadow but one who has something to hide?"_

The ceiling is melting, stringy gobs of congealed blood poured through a devil's sieve.

_"Mirrors don't reflect me, Raito. They used to. Now I'm just the shadow of a shadow."_

"You're dead, Ryuuzaki. Dead. Buried."

_"I'm just a dream."_

The eyes in the clock watch the blood drip.

_"Say goodnight, Raito."_

Pressure. Fingertips. Hands. Face.

Smile.

_Scream._

"Sweet dreams."


End file.
